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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy desires us to return to the golden age of air journey, when no one bought right into a punching match for reclining a seat into another person’s lap. He says this golden age begins with us, and he has a complete marketing campaign ready! I assume it can contain extra humane lodging for vacationers—or much less harrowing working conditions for the flight attendants charged with each crowd management and security. Or modernizing air-traffic management to make it safer and extra environment friendly.
Now to decrease my tray desk, take a sip from my tiny plastic cup dangerously overfilled with cranberry juice, and see what he has really helpful. There’s a video with footage of air journey seemingly from the Nineteen Sixties? He is in a swimsuit? And he desires us to decorate “with respect,” and “go back to an era when we didn’t wear pajamas to the airport”?
Sometimes I want I didn’t know the distinction between correlation and causation. I feel I might be happier. I would definitely have much more solutions for fixing issues. And I may inform individuals, with a straight face, to put on fits to the airport to usher again in a golden age.
If anyone compelled me to establish the issue with air journey at this time (this occurred to numerous comics within the Nineteen Eighties!), the costume code could be the very last thing I might recommend. To get well the conviviality of a time whenever you had sufficient elbow room to eat a meal on board the aircraft, you want the elbow room. You don’t want the elbow pads.
Simply placing on the clothes of an period when sardines didn’t stroll across the aircraft and mock your journey circumstances (“Look at that loser!” “Packed like that and not even in a tasty, aromatic oil!”) will not be sufficient. If something, you can be extra enraged than earlier than since you are in a swimsuit and also you don’t perceive what the change of outfit is meant to perform, like my child at any time when I attempt to put him in a festive hat.
Even for those who imagine that garments encourage civility, that’s true solely up to some extent. Look on the Nineteen Fifties, when everybody was in a swimsuit. Was it actually higher? One etiquette information for vacationers from the Nineteen Fifties and Nineteen Sixties additionally warned towards taking off your footwear, consuming, flirting with the flight attendants, and getting mad about delays. So perhaps there wasn’t even a golden age of civility then! The solely factor that was totally different was that you simply have been sporting a swimsuit whilst you harassed the flight attendant. And maybe William Shatner was there to see a gremlin on the wing.
No, the age of fits was not the golden age of air civility! To discover it, we should return earlier nonetheless! Then you will notice a development: males in high hats, ladies in hoop skirts, and completely no preventing on airplanes in any respect. Indeed, the sooner you go, the less aviation-related incidents there are. And this was absolutely due to the standard of the apparel accessible! The extra old school the outfit, the much less preventing on airplanes.
The completely smartest thing to put on to the airport is a toga. They are comfy, and for those who have a look at the annals of historic Rome, you’ll discover zero airport fight-incidents. Julius Caesar did get stabbed by a bunch of senators as soon as, however that was unrelated to air journey.
Alternatively, we may view this from a extra sensible angle. You know what sort of garments will assure civility? A full swimsuit of armor. Good luck to anybody who tries to recline onto that! Now all you could do is get it by safety.
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you possibly can go to the hyperlink bellow:
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/2025/11/sean-duffy-air-travel-fashion/685083/
and if you wish to take away this text from our website please contact us
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you…
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you…
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you…
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you…
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you…
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you'll…